


Keep me on time

by YeahAlrightDude



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YeahAlrightDude/pseuds/YeahAlrightDude
Summary: A lil post-game au drabble based off the prompt "Benrey teaches Gordon to use the Black Mesa Sweet Voice"
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 11
Kudos: 348





	Keep me on time

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to take a tiny break from my main fic to do something fluffy so I asked for prompts in a discord i'm in, pre-established relationship cause my other fic is all about establishing relationship and this is a break from that dfsjhfsj
> 
> Hopefully this doesn't suck LMAO

It was 1:23 in the morning, Joshua had been put to bed hours ago, but Gordon could not sleep. 

Tossing and turning in bed had done nothing for him - too many thoughts, whirling and scattered, pointless to try sleeping when he was like this. Especially when he was horribly alone. So he’d given up, wandered into his living room instead, searching for someone.

He’d found him on the floor, the controller in his hands clicking and clacking as his eyes stayed focused on his TV screen. The only response to Gordon stumbling blearily into the room was a slight rise of his brows, before his immediate attention was drawn back into the game he’d been playing.

Gordon had felt pathetic when he’d crawled onto the couch behind the other man, laid his face on the other’s helmet - cold and hard, but he didn’t care - and whined a pitiful little ‘Can you teach me?’

But Benrey _had_ paused the game.

It’d been months since Black Mesa, and for all he could tell - the world had started to spin backwards. It hadn’t been long after his narrow escape from hell that the once-upon-a-time security guard had shown up at his door, pointedly and cruelly still alive despite all of his efforts. It’d taken a great deal longer to accept that, to live with it - and with him, as awful as it had seemed at first. But he’d figured it out, bit by bit. A gradual understanding had made it possible - and an acknowledgement of a lot of things he hadn’t quite wanted to face. But, eventually, they had become friends, as bizarre as it was. And, eventually, they’d become -

Well, the world was strange after Black Mesa.

But it had been one in the morning when he’d first leaned against his roommate, pleading for a distraction. Twenty minutes later, and he’d made very little progress.

“Aaaaaaaaa-?”

“oof”

He’d thrown his legs over the edge of the couch at some point, trapping the other man between them as he’d listened to his woefully non-specific pointers. There was something about the throat, Gordon remembered that, but it hadn’t made much sense - the creeping exhaustion certainly wasn’t helping him parse any of the nonsense coming from the guard. Still, above all else there seemed to be one major flaw in his execution.

Gordon had never considered himself… well, much of a singer.

Actually, he was awful at it, but he’d never say it aloud. He wasn’t going to give Benrey the satisfaction.

“Maybe - maybe, I need another example, y’know?” He tried to look apologetic, a slight smile, but it was hard to tell if the other man read it that way.

Benrey just looked a bit exasperated, and on some level he couldn’t blame him. However, with a roll of his shoulders the other man began to hum a small tune, something sorrowful but pretty that Gordon could not place. Lilting, but smooth as butter for the most part - Benrey, unlike himself, was a good singer, surprisingly heartfelt in the moments he could be convinced to sing outside of the Sweet Voice. But now was not the time, the man’s voice beginning to warp into something far less human - wordless singing becoming something almost robotic, beautiful but alien.

The lights started out as bubbles, then slowly melded into a stream as they flowed past the guard’s lips, illuminating the living room in swirling colors. Soft blues, verdant greens, a hint of copper on the edges; melding together and drifting through the dark room. The reflections danced across the walls, dazzled in the TV screen, bright but not overpowering. Like glow sticks in the night - broken and oozing ones, he supposed. It was mesmerizing, water flowing through zero gravity, and he wanted desperately to touch it. 

He already knew how it’d feel: hardly more than nothing - like passing your hand through a cloud. Cool and slightly damp, a surprise when your hand came out dry. But he was _supposed_ to be observing how it felt to _create_ those little lights by now. Perhaps a small rumble in the chest, a burn, or something else entirely? But all Gordon had experienced thus far was humiliation.

The guard had stopped singing, instead leaning against Gordon’s leg, looking up at him softly. “maybe it would work if you didn’t suck shit at singing?” The smirk told Gordon the other man was teasing, hoping to get a rise out of him. It was going to work - this whole endeavor had been frustrating enough.

And maybe he enjoyed the back and forth. Just a bit.

“Wha - I don’t suck at singing!”

“uh, you do.”

“Maybe if you were a good teacher, not an asshole about it, i’d have gotten it by now? Like, I can’t be responsible for not being able to do something when no one’s actually teaching me -” His words were cut off by abrupt movement in front of him, Benrey twisting and turning onto his knees so that he was eye-level with Gordon.

“you seem mad - maybe we should kiss about it.”

Oh, so they were doing this now. He tried not to snicker, attempting to keep his face the definition of stern as he leveled with the entity before him. “No - no, you said you were going to teach me and I'm - I’m not letting you get out of it that easily, man! Can we just - like, go back to the part with the throat and -”

Benrey was leaning in closer now, “huh? shit’s boring, bro.” Eyes dark and half-lidded, red around the perimeter of the iris, little blues and greens twinkling from the fading light-show.

“No - fuck, Benrey, I’ll kiss you later, dude.” He tried not to look too obviously down at the guard’s lips, the growing smirk told him he was failing. A hand came to rest on his jaw, firm but gentle and -

Oh, fuck it, what did it matter anyway. He was soon leaning into the other man, hands splayed across his back, breath heavy as he moved to close the gap. The kiss was light, slow, sleepy - followed by a dozen lavished kisses across his face, slightly chapped lips pressing against his brow and the stubble of his beard.

Gordon sighed, shoving his face into the crook of the other man’s neck, breath against his clavicle. The fabric of his t-shirt was soft where his hands lay, the skin beneath it cold but warming under his fingertips. Fingers pulled through his hair, snagging on little tangles here and there - but mostly gentle. It was soothing, quiet except for the slowing beat of his own heart. He could have slept like that, leaning onto the other man just so, but a subtle nagging still pulled at the edge of his consciousness, forbidding him the privilege.

“I probably can’t even do it -”

“mmm” It was a low rumble, reverberating into Gordon where their bodies touched.

“ - like, physically.” He continued to mumble into Benrey’s neck, “It’s probably impossible because I’m not, god, I don’t know - not a weird alien or whatever.”

They sat like that for a moment, fingers no longer brushing through his hair. He was almost worried - had that been rude? Maybe he needed to apologize, say something about how he didn’t mean Benrey when he said ‘weird alien’ or - no, that’d be stupid, that was clearly what he’d meant. God, why did he have to be like this? Always sticking his foot in his mouth like an idiot and -

His thoughts dizzied as Benrey’s hand grasped his chin and pulled his face into another kiss. The guard was humming, the sensation somewhat pleasant. Less pleasant was the pink and yellow that spilled out where their lips met, far brighter and alarming so close to his face. The taste was predictably sweet, strawberry and lemon tinting the tip of his tongue, becoming almost sickening when Benrey’s hand pulled at the back of his neck to deepen the kiss.

After a moment, the guard broke away - leaning back to stare triumphantly at Gordon.

“wow, look - you did it, bro.”

“What?”

“whoah, you did the Black Mesa Sweet Voice. it, like, came out of your mouth and everything.”

“Oh my god, that is not - that doesn’t count!”

Benrey was still smiling, even as he teased. “yeah, ok. it does, though?”

“No, no.” He was really trying not to smile back at the other man, he would swear by that. “No you can’t just - that’s not how this works. Like, it’s like -” He was struggling to come up with words. The way Benrey looked at him was making it hard to. Adoration that few others would catch, something he had had to learn to see, but it was there - painted across the guard’s expression in the low light of their apartment. “It’s like… like dragging your baby across a carpet and saying it knows how to walk?”

“…baby?”

“Oh my god -”

The smile on the guard’s face was growing into something far more mischievous, “you comparin’ yourself to a baby, feetman?”

Gordon, frankly, was mortified, “Oh my god, yeah, that was dumb - remind me to leave similes to Tommy next time, please?”

There were a number of unfortunate side-effects to living with Benrey, Gordon had discovered. First off, that he would only eat absolutely disgusting things, and would often insist on Gordon watching him do so. Additionally, Benrey was very, very good with Joshua - which annoyed Gordon to no end, if only because he worried Joshua preferred the other man over him. Most importantly, perhaps, was the sheer truth that Benrey really, really liked it when Gordon fucked up.

“big baby man over here.”

“Nope, stop it.”

“dumb little baby gonna piss his pants? need a little diaper cause uh, cause he’s a baby?”

“There isn’t any milk in this pail, bud, you should actually probably give up.

“stupid shitty baby need a nap?”

Oh, yes, absolutely. “You know what? Yeah, actually - I’m really tired, man.” He was unbelievably tired, but an empty bed still wasn’t particularly appealing. 

Benrey seemed to get the message, face dropping a bit before he glanced down and off to the side, face flushed slightly. He cast what looked to be one last mournful glance to the TV, still flashing a dark ‘GAME PAUSED’ message, before grabbing both of Gordon’s arms. The sweeping motion that brought them both to their feet was alarming, Gordon still was unused to the strength the guard hid behind his mostly average facade. 

But then, there they were, staring into each other’s eyes, “alright, let’s go to bed.”

It was 1:45 when Gordon fell asleep, tucked into bed, his face pressed against Benrey’s chest, and two arms wrapped around him.


End file.
